Judicial Investigation Friendly Digital Systems, Judibility.
Judicial Usability is called Judibility for Designing Judicial Investigation Friendly Digital Systems in a Tech Savvy Society.
Index of Judibility. (Link)
Compassion towards People and Society
We are living in a digitally tech-savvy society. In the last decade, the availability of mobile phones and high-speed Internet almost everywhere has transformed society into a digitally tech-savvy society. Digital products and services have seamlessly become an integral part of our daily lives to the extent that they are passively invisible to us in our everyday life. The government and private sector are equally promoting interaction through digital interfaces to avail government and retail services.
Alongside, tech-related judiciary retail consumer cases are rising in a digitally tech-savvy society. A society is composed of all types of people. The beneficiaries of the digital systems could be elderly, disabled, or non-tech-savvy layman human beings. The article is an effort to put some light on the identification, comprehension, and investigation of complex digital incidences by a layman with an average IQ and the existing capabilities of the judicial system.
I’ll discuss a personal experience in the article to explain Tech stonewalling that has created a need for looking into the state of Judicial Usability for designing judicial investigation-friendly digital systems in a tech-savvy society. A personal experience of a judicial encounter regarding my Health Insurance policy by HDFC ERGO made me ponder the subject. The case provides a glimpse of Tech Jurisprudence and the End User’s Internal locus of Control in a Digitally Tech-Savvy Society. I’ll be surfacing the gaps in the digital ecosystem to prevent exploitation in lieu of tech stonewalling by service providers and manufacturers. You will come across a lot of tactful technical arguments the HDFC ERGO team is throwing in their defense to get away from their responsibilities that a layman customer has no chance to stand.
A Dearth of Techno-functional Knowledge
The article discusses techno-functional exposition and elucidation that’ll surface various facades of Tech stonewalling in our modern Digital Tech Savvy Society. It will surface the incapabilities of a layman, a seasoned advocate, and Judges in identifying and reasoning various facades of Tech stonewalling in the absence of a team of paralegal techno-functional consultants. Techno-functional exposition and elucidation are necessary for contesting tech-related legal cases. A layman has to generally contest his case alone with the customer care executive, grievance redressal officer, Insurance Ombudsman, and Consumer Forum. Later in the article, all these discussions will clarify the need for Judicial Usability.
What is Tech Stonewalling?
Tech stonewalling in a nutshell is unquestionably accepting the statements given by the Tech Company without the scope of any evaluation, investigation, probe, assessment, or comparison. Throughout this article, I’ll explain the different scenarios as they appear that can be identified as Tech stonewalling. The next frontier in UX is to design judicial investigation-friendly digital systems to rapidly mitigate the volume of digital-related retail cases that are rising in our digitally tech-savvy society. Digital Companies are taking weeks to investigate simple issues as a way of exploiting users by discouraging them in lieu of Tech stonewalling. Remember a justice delayed is justice denied.
Premise
What is the HDFC ERGO health insurance stay active discount?
I have an HDFC ERGO Optima Restore 5 lakhs policy. HDFC ERGO provides up to 8% of stay active discount on renewable for meeting certain walking steps criteria. The customer has to install the HDFC ERGO Application on the mobile and connect with Google Fit Application. The Google Fit application collects the step count. The HDFC ERGO application retrieves the data from the Google Fit application. HDFC ERGO calculates the quarterly data and gives a maximum discount of 2% on meeting the necessary criteria. 2% every quarter adds up to an 8% maximum discount every year.
Scenario
The story is from November 2021. I was renewing my HDFC ERGO health insurance policy. I noticed the applied discount on stay active steps isn’t displayed anywhere in the policy renewal checkout user flow to bring it to the notice of customers. I emailed the HDFC ERGO health insurance customer care to inquire about the stay active discount. I waited for a few hours for the response but as it was the last day for renewal, I went ahead with the renewal without the discount.
Observation
I believe that even if the discount given is nil, the customer should have been informed duly. The applied discount should have appeared in the final bill amount. Complicating the processes is an attempt to discourage the customer from rightfully availing of the entitled services and pocketing the amount. Such User Experience Dark Patterns of deliberately designing poor user flows are a strategically planned way to avoid disbursing the discounts.
Speculation, Reasoning, and Suspicion
The cost of the 2021–2022 policy is 8370 INR. Saving 8% maximum discounted amount which is 670 INR from the policy renewal cost of 8370 INR from every retail customer is a brilliant profit for the company.
I assume this is an organized strategic business model to make a profit by exploiting and downplaying thrifty amounts alongside tech stonewalling assuming customers won’t most likely claim the amount given the complexity of comprehending the tech-related matter in the justice system.
This is the reason we require the provision of User Experience Digital Forensic Investigation at the bottom line in the District Consumer Courts. I’ve written a post on User Experience Digital Forensic Investigation that you may like to read after completing this post. (Link)
So, I decided to continue the conversation with HDFC ERGO after renewing the policy to find out about the steps count to avail stay active discount.
Persona and Learnability Curve
HDFC ERGO app is a customer-facing retail application. The usability, UX, and design of customer-facing retail applications for the masses follow Essential Design and Universal design principles. A customer-facing application is designed by considering the persona of the user segment after performing thorough user research by the team of user experience practitioners under the supervision of the product manager. There is a popular law in UX called Jakob’s law which is specifically applied to retail applications to achieve scalability among the masses by minimizing the learnability curve. Jakob’s law states that Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know. This makes sure that the design aligns with the mental model of the majority of users, minimizing the effort in learning to use the app. Users will likely find an effortless easy-to-use app to be user-friendly.
Demanding Screenshots
HDFC ERGO asked me to send the screenshots from the Google Fit app as they failed to locate the data registered on their server. Providing 365 screenshots of 365 days from the Google Fit app will take forever. It is not a viable exercise. We all use plenty of online services these days. Such a request can’t be entertained otherwise every company may declare the nonexistence of data on their server at the end of the tenure and demand all the screenshots simply to discourage the users such that the discouraged user voluntarily withdraws from the claim.
Self Disclosure
Ratul Aich is a professional Photoshop User. He is a seasoned expert in photo editing and photo manipulation. He earned an Advanced Diploma in Animation and Multimedia from Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics and a BSc Visual Communication Degree from Annamalai University with 14 years of Freelancing and Corporate working experience in the field of UX, UI, and Interaction Design serving as a Principal Consultant UX.
Challenging the authenticity of the content externally provided by the user during the investigation
How would the court verify and establish the authenticity of the screenshots from Google Fit and excel sheets downloaded from Google Takeout?
I assume, there is no way to verify the authenticity of the documents if I externally provide the documents to HDFC ERGO & Court, unless HDFC ERGO directly retrieves the data from the Google Server internally. This would drag Google Legal Team & HIPAA into the picture.
Regulatory Characteristics
The HDFC ERGO application is an ‘essential application’ because it provides monetary benefits through discounts on meeting certain commitments by the customer. This invariably also positions it under the purview of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). Customers can not escape the app and service. The app doesn’t merely provide only information but it is responsible for monetary benefit.
Installation Instruction
I refused to furnish impractical requests for screenshots. HDFC ERGO asked me to reconnect the app with the previous year’s 2020–2021 expired policy. They sent me a PDF with step-by-step instructions for installation, login, and connecting the profile with the Google Fit app. Their software development team tried to retrieve the data from Google Fit but didn’t succeed because the 2020–2021 policy expired after the renewal of the 2021–2022 policy. Meanwhile, I send them some screenshots to reconfirm that I have correctly followed through with their instructions to connect with the 2020–2021 policy. One of the screenshots stated, “Loading Your data… Please Wait”. HDFC ERGO inquired about the screenshots.
Loading vs Syncing
HDFC ERGO inquired about the screenshot that was showing “Loading Your data… Please Wait”. The data on this page has never appeared ever since I installed the application even though at times I’ve stood by for the page to load. HDFC ERGO blamed me citing the screenshot that the data might not have registered on their server due to the same reason. Meanwhile, I provided HDFC ERGO with another set of screenshots from the HDFC ERGO app.
One of the screenshots lists the partial data from Quarter 1 with an average of 3433 steps. This contradicts the page loading statement made by HDFC ERGO because in that case no data would have been registered on their server throughout the tenure of one year. This is not the case. The partial data of Quarter 1 which is an average of 3433 steps have been registered by their server. This ascertains that whether the page loads or not, syncing data is a background process. Anyways the point should have been noted that the word syncing would’ve never popped up in the head of a layman and a general advocate. Had it been a layman the case would have rested but I didn’t let it because shhh… I’m Batman.
UX Writing and Micro Copy Specialists
Further, the meaning of loading and syncing is different conventionally.
The widespread general conception of the word ‘Loading’ is ‘Loading of Web Page’ on the user device. The widespread general conception of the word ‘Syncing’ is ‘Syncing of data with the cloud server’. Mostly syncing happens in the background. Take the example of Whatsapp in the year 2022 which specifically informs the user during the clean installation and restoration of data to not close the app while it is syncing the data partially now and the rest in the background. UX Writing is a field dedicated to it. HDFC ERGO can’t miscommunicate with users and blamed the user for not following the instruction. There was no error alert intimation at any point in time to inform the user that the data has not synced. In lack of any alert, the two successive confirmations (Level 1 & Level 2) marked in the images satisfactorily create a general conviction for the user that, ‘the app has connected with the policy successfully (level 1)’ and the ‘data of that day is reflecting on the screen (level 2)’.
Every time, I formatted my phone and reinstalled the HDFC ERGO app, I waited for a while for the data to load but because it was written ‘Loading’ instead of ‘Syncing’, as a user with a general conviction, I was assured everything has synced properly and I thought anyways, I can view the same data in Google Fit app (with that the HDFC ERGO app is connected) so the loading of the screen never bothered me similar to loading of a web page.
Regular app updates and changing features
Routine app updates are part of the digital ecosystem. Every few days the apps are updated by the tech companies to address a shortcoming. UX and Design related app updates influence user behavior. App updates are important because they impact judicial advocacy and judgment. The takeover by HDFC ERGO has discontinued the Apollo Munich app. Earlier when the HDFC ERGO app has been newly launched, the screen used to look different. Then the screen changed with a version update.
Suspecting the User’s general knowledge
The HDFC ERGO app retrieves the data from the Google Fit app. Fortunately, the data has been properly recorded and is available in the Google Fit application. Google Fit works like a witness against HDFC ERGO stonewalling in the context of the case. In the absence of Google Fit, I wouldn’t be able to challenge the HDFC ERGO statement and many other technicalities.
The registration of data in the Google Fit app over one year ascertains that the Mobile device of the end-user was functioning properly throughout the year and the user has adequate general knowledge to install and login to any generic app that follows universal design principles.
Exposing the HDFC ERGO app development team’s capabilities
Google Play seems to register the installation activity of an application.
HDFC ERGO servers will collect the new registration and login session activity. Unless they deny the existence of this data too due to some system error.
The appropriate policy needs to be connected with the user profile followed by connecting with the Google Fit account in the HDFC ERGO application.
An app has various checkpoints built by the development team and testing team to check activities and identify errors. One such checkpoint affirms routinely if the app has been installed and is active on the user’s mobile. Another checkpoint affirms the routine activities in the application. If an app has been installed and active on the user’s mobile yet the step count collected is zero for the day then it is a red flag that is the result of a technical error because if a user is not taking a single step in the whole day even though the app is active would simply mean either the user is dead or he has locked his mobile in the closet. The technical team has not carefully built the checkpoints thus internal intimation has never been triggered and identified by the technical team.
Exemplary Lawsuit
It seems the product management team of HDFC ERGO has not followed the best practices in user research, design, usability testing, software dev, and software testing resulting in a barely functional app released in the market that didn’t even graduate to be a reliable app. An application matures from being Functional, Reliable, Usable, and Emotional Design.
Generally, beta apps are released in the market after successful reliability testing. Production release apps are usability tested and certified by statutory bodies. An essential app with the accountability of collecting data used to assess monetary transactions can’t be released in the market as a beta. Think of the UPI app being released in the market in the beta phase and you as the beta user lost tons of money from your bank account. We all in India have witnessed such a scenario with the newly redesigned Income Tax website in the year 2021 developed by Infosys which malfunctioning led to a full-blown political fiasco because powerful stakeholder with huge money at stake was involved. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman publicly tweeted in a desperate attempt to find a scapegoat in Infosys CEO Salil Parekh to hide the inadequacy in regulations that shapes digital ecosystem protocols that further shape the highly marketed digitally tech-savvy society with government initiatives like the Digital India campaign. A reminiscence before the year 2010 about the Indian IT companies’ over-promises and under-delivery tactics until corporations in the USA identified the malpractice at scale and regulated it by kicking compensation clause for missing commitment by the service provider. The Public, politicians, and executives are also citizens of India. They are at the receiving end of several poorly designed risk-prone universal and essential digital services.
How long would we avoid taking regulatory measures to hinder releasing prematurely usability-tested essential digital services in a tech-savvy society?
Tech Ecosystem Opaqueness
Tired of the HDFC ERGO grievance redressal officer circling back and forth on the issue without mitigating it, I moved my plea to the Insurance Ombudsman.
Earlier, I provided HDFC ERGO with the screenshots taken from the HDFC ERGO app that list the partial data from Quarter 1 with an average of 3433 steps.
HDFC ERGO has stated in their response to the Insurance Ombudsman that the insured is eligible for a 0% discount as he completed step 3433, whereas he was required to complete the step count as mentioned in the below table. Since the insured has not completed the required step count i.e, a minimum of 5000 steps, he is not eligible for the discount under the policy. In view of the above, the complainant is not eligible for a discount. Hence the complaint is dismissed on this count.
Comparative Studies
In case, HDFC ERGO solely collects and publishes the data, then at the end of the year (tenure), I’d have no scope to produce the data.
The customer has been unquestionably compelled to agree to whatever information has been provided by the tech company as there is no scope for verifying the data by a layman standing on the other side of the desk. The customer has to be at the mercy of the service provider taking their words as final statements without the scope of challenging the statements.
This is another form of Tech Stonewalling.
Fortunately, in this case, the data has been recorded in Google Fit. Otherwise, there would be no scope to verify the authenticity of the statement given by respondent HDFC ERGO to the Insurance Ombudsman regarding the data collected by the HDFC ERGO application listing only the partial data from Quarter 1 with an average of 3433 steps.
Contemplation
Which party between the technology company and the user should be held liable for the non-registration of data in the backend server given the app has been procedurally installed by the user on the mobile?
What choices does the end user have other than unquestionably accepting the average count given by the company?
How could we evaluate the information provided by the company as a layman standing on this side of the desk?
Judiciary Transformation
The idea is to assimilate Techno-Functional Paralegal Consultants into the Judiciary Fabric from the bottom line to the top.
It is not practical for a Judge, a layman, or an advocate to make sense of the complex digital systems in the absence of a team of specialized paralegal tech consultants. The specialized team of paralegal tech consultants is the need of the hour in a digitally tech-savvy society. Specialized paralegal tech consultants are very much required at the bottom line of grievance redressal, ombudsman, and consumer forum to comprehend the scenarios, suggest the type of evaluation, and conclude the volume of retail cases rapidly.
I’ve identified a sequence of communication gaps right from the first time incidence has been noticed by the user followed by escalating through the hierarchy.
- A lot of customers would sink while discussing the matter with the customer executives due to the inadequacy in preparing arguments by comprehending the tech-related incident to defend their points.
- The majority of the users may not dare to take the hassle to hire an advocate for a tech-related case that they find themselves inadequate to comprehend after being discouraged by the curve balls of the customer care executive.
- The advocate would find it complicated to comprehend the incidence, figure out the shreds of evidence and prepare the defense to send a legal notice.
- The Judge as in the case of the Insurance Ombudsman finds it difficult to order a precise probe given the complexity of the tech-related ecosystem.
- Finally advocating the retail case of a thrifty amount by the layman user alone in the Insurance Ombudsman and Consumer Court in front of a Judge may further reduce the chances of a favorable outcome.
Hardcopy and Traveling for Legal Proceedings
The Insurance Ombudsman asked me to get the print of all the documents and send them the hard copy. The scenario is similar in the case of the Consumer Forum too. My advocate recommended I file the petition in person by visiting the nearest district consumer forum referring to other plaintiffs’ difficulties in litigation filed through the eDaakhil portal used for online filing in Consumer Forum. The number of pages adds up to nearly 900 including all the email conversations. I preferred to be heard through the eDaakhil portal because the district consumer court is 40 min drive from my home. I may need to make the visit multiple times during the course of the hearing. Printing a heap of hardcopy documents for a single lawsuit of a mere thrifty amount to submit to the Insurance Ombudsman and the Consumer Court discourages the plaintiff since has he not win the case, the printing & travel expenses to the Consumer Forum will add to the overall cost of litigation. Every new discouraging exercise exploits and forces a lot of plaintiffs into voluntary withdrawal, filtering the number of plaintiffs seeking justice, and adding to the advantage of the respondent Insurance Company.
Strategically Exploiting in Lieu of Tech Stonewalling
An organized strategic business model to make a profit by exploiting and downplaying thrifty amounts alongside tech stonewalling assuming customers won’t most likely claim the amount given the complexity and ignorance towards the tech literacy in the absence of systematic allocation of techno-functional consultants in the various facade of the justice system.
The possibility of HDFC ERGO Health Insurance Statistician profiting by calculating the ratio of escalation and litigation for bribe and settlement wrt the revenue earned by siphoning thrifty money from its customers can’t be ruled out.
Decade-long Judicial Usability Redesigning Exercise
In the age of the Digital Tech Savvy society, we need tech-literate courts & judges and joint programs/exercises to redesign the overall tech ecosystem over a period of time in cooperation with the legal system such that the Judges can comprehend the nitty-gritty of tech to order an appropriate probe that is viable. Alongside, developing the capability of Judges for acknowledging the findings of the probe and disburse the judgment.
Failing to address the matter judicially by designing a tech-regulated ecosystem, would keep it open for exploitation by consultants, business analysts, business strategists, and tech companies at various levels.
Transforming Insurer approach addressing Techno-Functional Legal Matters
The HDFC ERGO grievance team followed by the legal team has looked into the matter and furnished the standard response as earlier. Had it been for the Tech, UX, and CX specialists being the part of HDFC ERGO legal and grievance team, such superficial replies to fulfill the regulatory obligations could be avoided. Presumably, the trail of conversations with HDFC ERGO’s poorly hired and poorly trained team of customer care suggests a Well-Fargo type of planned fiasco. Wells Fargo to pay $3 billion to U.S., admits pressuring workers in fake-accounts scandal. (Link)
Exhausting Ombudsman
I assume that moving the smallest of matters to the Insurance Ombudsman on purpose might be an effective customer service cost-cutting tactic by the Insurance Companies. This will save a lot on hiring, training, and remuneration to on-par efficient customer executives. This is one way of soaring revenue in the account books. It seems to me that Insurance Companies are deliberately passing minuscule & micro conflicts of thrifty amounts to burden and exhaust the Insurance Ombudsman System. It is evident by the number of emails exchanged with HDFC ERGO in this case. A system that is exhausted will result in a delay of the proceeding that will discourage the Insurance Holder from lodging micro complaints of thrifty amounts with the Insurance Ombudsman in the future. The Insurance holder will also advertise his situation with other Insurance holders through word of mouth and social media. This will create a chain reaction to further discourage Insurance holders from lodging the micro complaint of thrifty amounts with the Insurance Ombudsman by passive methods which is another way of soaring the revenue of the Insurance Companies on account books. Deliberately burdening the legal system will require Government to allocate additional resources that result in overspending public funds beyond estimation passing the weight onto the shoulder of the public in the form of additional taxes and surcharges.
Thought Leadership, Regulator, and Administrator
Think of such a thing happening at scale with all the applications online. Such a loophole could be taken advantage of strategically by digital companies across the digital ecosystem. This incident needs to be reported to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) thought leadership.
Detail copy of the litigation for public review
Insurance Ombudsman Complaint Number — KOL-H-018–2122–0878 and Insurance Ombudsman Award Number — IO/KOL/A/HI/0036/2022–2023. IRDAI complain no 08–22–008408. District Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum, Barasat, North 24 Parganas, India, Reference number A22090004397 case no CC/353/2022.
Three Grievance Appellate Committees (GACs) Notified on the recently amended “IT Rules 2021”.
Safety & Trust of Digital Nagriks and Accountability of Platforms to their Digital Nagriks are policy objectives for the Shri Narendra Modi Govt: MoS Shri Rajeev Chandrasekhar. Posted On: 28 JAN 2023 11:08 AM by PIB Delhi. (Link)
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission Complaint Petition CC-353-2022. (Link)
I have been Practicing Usability Analysis for the last 12 years with a distinction in Conducting Usability Testing from the Interaction Design Foundation.
I’ve been fined 10000/- (Ten Thousand INR) for identifying and requesting an investigation of Usability issues by complaining to the GoI’s Quasi-Judicial body, the Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission. The ground realities of social justice (class action lawsuits) in India are very different from anything we pitch in the UX Conferences.
Salient Contemplation of Verdict Pronounced by District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission. (Link)
The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Barasat, North 24 Parganas, West Bengal, Collection of Ratul Aich vs HDFC ERGO Proceedings and Orders CC-353–2022. Final proceedings page number 71 onwards. (Link)
Index of Judibility. (Link)
The next in the series is User Experience Digital Forensic Investigation. (Link)
A similar article, Grocery E-Commerce, Micro Dispute, Social Capital & State of Law in Developing Countries. The Future of Grocery E-Commerce legal dispute assessment, social capital significance, and Perception of local law practices in India. (Link)
Also, you may like to check out the extract of another consumer court case that questions the arrangement of insurance companies institutionally exploiting quasi-judicial patients in unanimity (Link). The detailed consumer court lawsuit can be found in the post, How effective is complaining to the Insurance Ombudsman and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI)? (Link)
Updates in the Health Insurance Sector of India as published on 12 April 2023, GIC To Create Common Empanelment Platform for Cashless Health Insurance Claims. General Insurance Council, the industry body representing non-life insurers, plans to create a common empanelment platform for hospitals to simplify and boost the cashless claims process (Link). Updates published on 29 May 2023, The arrival of Bima Sugam is a watershed moment for the Insurance Industry. (Link)
A bonus article that you may like to read along similar lines, Assuming the Governance of Communication Science in the Age of AI Disruption (Link).
Last edited on 17 September 2024.
